Fool's Gambit

Cover photo credit to: Peter Nowell

Rules can be found in the PDF document attached, but will be copied here as well.

Number of supported players: 2

Material Requirements: 1-2 decks of standard playing cards

• Cards are ranked in ascending order from 2 - Ace. 
• The value of face cards in descending order goes King>Queen>Jack, however for point scoring they all count for 10 points. 
• Ace is above all and counts as 14 points.
• There will be four areas of cards per player. The Main deck that they will draw from, the Off-hand, the discard pile, and the Winning pile. These can be placed wherever you like.

How to Play:

1. Split the deck into blacks and reds and each player gets one of the colors (only if using one deck, otherwise each player gets a full deck of cards).
   1. Remove all Jokers from the decks, they will not be used.
2. Each player shuffles their cards.
3. Once shuffled and stacked into your main pile, both players pull 3 cards.
4. Each player chooses one card to duel with, and a second card to wager.
5. Once each player has chosen their cards, they will place their dueling card face down, and their wagered card face up in front of them.
6. Each player now has to chance to swap their third card with either their dueling card or wagered card.
7. Both players then flip their dueling cards. Whoever’s dueling card has the higher value places their wagered card into their winning pile, and the losing player places their wagered card into the discard pile.
   1. Both dueling cards are also placed in the discard pile, and the third card is placed in the “off-hand” pile to be used later.
8. If the players’ dueling cards are equal, both players return their wagered card to their off-hand.
9. Repeat steps 3-8 until the players run out of playable hands in their main deck (both players should have the same number of cards in their main deck and off-hand at all times if playing correctly). Once that happens the player takes all the cards in their “off hand”, shuffles them into the main deck, and continues with that deck.
10. The game ends when the players have less than 3 cards between their off-hand and main deck. Once the game is over, both players tally the numerical value of all the cards in their individual winning decks. The player with the higher score wins.

Additional Rules:

• Some cards, when played as the dueling card, have special effects.
  • When a player duels with a 2 card, the value of their wagered card replaces the value of the dueling card.
  • When a player duels with a 5 card, the opponent must replace their dueling card with their third card.
  • When a player duels with a 7 card, the result of the duel is reversed. (Ex: If player 1 would normally lose the duel, they instead win and vice versa.)
• If multiple “special cards” are played at the same time, the order of effects is as follows: 5 > 2 > 7. (Ex: If player 1 places a 7 as their dueling card and player 2 places a 5, the effects of card 5 are used first.)
• If a special card gets swapped in because of a 5 at play, the special effect of that card will apply.
  • Alternatively, if a special card gets swapped out because of a 5, that special effect does not get applied (because it is no longer in play).